A Shot to the Dark
by IntoTheDusk
Summary: The death of a figure brings more than what is seen...


A Shot to the Dark

The energy ball coalesced into a mask like shape, and said "Thank you" with a plain robotic voice. She retracted her hand from the hextech ticket collector, and waited for the gate to disperse. Within 10 seconds, it disappeared, opening into the great hall of the palace. She rushed through the gate, intent on her goal.

The hall was dark and dank, with mildew staining the carpet and lights flickering overhead. She caught a glimpse of a rat before it scurried into the shadows. The carpet beneath her squelched with each footstep in a decisively disgusting manner. Her suitcase trailed, floating shortly behind her, bobbing up and down like most hextech contraptions tend to do. She occasionally turned her head from side to side, watching, but not attempting to be caught doing so. Luckily, she was alone, and she had nothing to fear from the darkness. She had been there enough times to know what could lurk there, and had enough experience dealing with the lurkers that the light harbored more dangers than the darkness.

She reached the crowded area of the hall, as she had taken the back way, and waded through the crowd, all talking about each other, and the speech that was to come. She lightly touched her forehead, signaling the suitcase to go invisible. Luckily, the previous celebrations of the night made for an easy passage through the area, as an Ionian elephant stepping on them most likely wouldn't have woken them from their drunken stupor. She continued to walk briskly through the crowd until she reached a staircase to an unoccupied balcony, high on the top of the palace Auditorium. She walked up the stairs, jet black heels clacking up the obsidian steps. She took a moment to gaze over the crowd, and she took up a sinister grin. She checked the area for guards or other occupants coming up the stairs, but she saw none.

The walls bore large paintings from each era of Noxus, from the grim origins of the state to the even darker present. She shivered at the thought of living in Noxus, and briefly pondered about how Noxians could live in such a gloomy, unforgiving place. The balcony she had chosen was a V.I.P balcony, such so that on the other side of the partitions that adjoined the adjacent balconies she heard a conversation between a well known Noxian aristocrat. She heard him talk about trade in Noxus, and he complained about how his stocks in Yordle Slavery were going down. He talked about how he had so many problems, living in the rich sector of Noxus. She scoffed at nearly his every word, and wished she could throw him off the balcony into the giant swarm below.

She closed the door to the balcony, and quickly took a silenced pistol out of her dress and shot the Security drone that hovered in the corner of the room. Its camera flickered, then died. It was still active, and it made very little sound, but it would not betray her position. Everything was going to plan.

She then called over her suitcase, and landed it on the floor beneath her. It opened with a barely hearable hiss, and revealed the inside. Inside the gray, featureless exterior, there was a black interior, with a slight indent in the center of the bottom half. She slipped off her dress and shook out of it multiple plates. They clattered onto the floor, though not loud enough for the aristocrat to hear.

As she shook the plates out, the crowd of thousands in the palace heard what they had came so far to hear: the Grand General of Noxus, Jerico Swain. He had gathered so many of his citizens there to spew forth a multitude of propaganda, all of which harbored, as all propaganda does, an element of truth, but also sinister lies.

Swain was formally dressed as he always tended to be, appearing to his people as a figurehead, someone who could be counted on the kill the right thing. Surrounding him was a small legion of troops and Zaunite Machines, so that if a riot ever broke out in the palace it could be stomped with haste. He stood in a normal looking center area, but to the trained eye one could see a slight glimmer; a refraction of light all around him. To her eye, it was not just a field, but a Zaunite Inhibitor field, one that prevented all matter from entering or exiting the field. It was one giant bulletproof vest. To most assassins, the barrier was impossible to break. For the right assassin, though, they knew their weaknesses.

For one, one could shoot the sides of the field to concentrate it there, then with a well placed shot one could shoot an explosive dart into the middle, trapping the occupant in a violent death. However, lining up all the shots was nigh on impossible in the middle of a palace where, at the sounding of a horn, thousands would give their life to save the General.

The most classic, M16-esque (as the daring 007 was the one to perfect the technique against a late Katarina) way was to simply take out the power generator in the building, as it would obviously power it down. However, as a one-man operation, this was impossible, as one had to take down all generators, main and backup, down at once and then fire a shot right into the heart of the target milliseconds after. She thought that she might like to see the record of this exploit if she got out alive. Then again, she thought, she most likely would not. She seemed unbothered by this though, as if she had died long ago.

The final way of penetrating the impermeable was her way- the dangerously obvious way. Her secret? Well, she isn't one to tell secrets.

At that point, Swain was in the thick of his speech casted to take roughly an hour. Plenty of time, she thought as she lined up the plates but left one aside.

She placed one plate in, and the suitcase suddenly came alive. A grasper emerged from the top of the case, and two nozzles poked through the sides. It became clear at this point to any possible observers that this was no suitcase.

This was a factory.

The plate submerged into the suitcase, and a large potion of the bottom floated out of the suitcase and jetted out of the nozzles. The nozzles twirled around the suitcase at a dizzying rate, until the grasper seemed to hold something. It was a scope to a sniper rifle. She placed another plate in before looking at the clock. She had 40 minutes left until she could never get her window again. She placed another plate, and more matter spat out of the machine. The next thing she took out of the grasper a stock to a rifle. 35 minutes left. She swore to herself in a forbidden language, and continued to place the plates into the fabrication machine. She received a barrel, ammo, and the various workings of the gun. She then placed all the parts into the factory again. The top closed silently, and she heard a loud ca-CHUNK. The top reopened to find the famous sheriff's rifle. She smiled a sinister smile once more and took the plate she placed aside earlier.

However, this wasn't a plain plate like the others. It was a pulsefire plate. She placed it into the factory and it sucked it in like the others. However, this time, it used its hextech core to power the pulsefire machine.

The factory crumbled into the floor and left in its wake a little attachment. She fitted it to the barrel of the rifle. 20 minutes.

Of course, being pulsefire tech, it was impossible to know how it functioned, but she did know how she obtained it. She "acquired" it the other week from Ezreal after doing some serious "favors" for him. She guessed it must have been a little heartbreaking to him that she used him to steal a piece of his forbidden tech from the future, and he promptly fell into depression. _Serves the wimp right._ She thought as she cleaned the gun. Ezreal apparently had a night with a certain fox shortly after. That man surely was weird.

What it actually did, however, was quite explainable. It generated a field around it, and used that field to power a centrifuge that spun a web of plasma around its circular nozzle. It gave a bullet a plasma field as well, making it go over triple its original speed and gave it amazing penetration and power.

It turned a pistol bullet into a cannon blast. 10 minutes.

She loaded the gun and trained its sight at various targets in the crowd. Her rifle projected where it would land and if it would kill. When she placed it over Swain's head, it said: "Do not attempt." She knew better. She adjusted the rifle for maximum yield and fastest speed. 10 seconds.

She took one last look at her life and what it had lead up to, and, with a tear in her eye, trained directly on Swain's head, fired. The bullet streaked across the palace, broke through the barrier and impacted squarely between his eyes. As he fell, the Zaunite Machines followed the bullet trail and returned fire.

As her body was eviscerated, her last thoughts were of the future.


End file.
